Computer Go

The world's first Computer Go tournament was held in January at the
Covent Garden officesof Acornsoft Ltd. Games were played on 13*13
boards, and the programs all ran on BBc microcomputers (no peripheral
memory was allowed). The winner of the £1000 first prize was
Bronyslaw Przbyla, from Swindon. Most of the eight programs competing
played something looking quite like 25 kyu human play, but his was the
best at avoiding worthless moves. The final game is given below, with
brief comments by matthew Macfadyen, who was one of the referees at the
tournament.

Black: Bronyslaw Przybyla's program
White: Richard Granville's program
The game-file in SGF format.

Black 17 creates a very tense situation - neither program
explicitly recognises eyes, so one of the groups on the side is likely
to die.

White 18: White has no idea that his group is in trouble.

Black 19: Przybyla's program looks for ways in which groups can
extend towards the centre, and finds 19 because it was the only way for
white to extend. Having played here, however, it loses interest until
the group is down to 2 or 3 liberties.

Black 23: He knows about ladders, and spots that white 8 can't be
killed in one any more.

Black 29: Lucky. As long as black 31 has not been played, the three
stones 7, 11 and 15 have only two liberties and Black will not 'see'
that the big white group has only three. After 31, though, he can 'see'
white's danger, and adds another stone at 33, so that he can prove that
white is dead.

Black 33-43: Having played 33, Black can handle the fight up to 43.
The game was by no means over after 43, but Black's advantage was clear.

White 56 is more or less the losing move. Both of these programs
explicitly recognise ladders, and neither would cut at 56, but Richard's
program does not make the one extra step needed to avoid protecting
against it.

White 64 is an example of a blunder several of the programs made -
trying to make good shape from dead stones. The shape of 58, 60 and 64
is good, but white is not 'strong enough' to use it properly. This is
one of the trickier problems with using simple minded definitions of
good shape.

Black 71 is a wasted move, but many of the programs would have
wasted two moves by capturing 64 and 66 completely.

Black 87 has been the biggest point for some time - if white had
taken this point instead of 86 he might still have had a chance. From
here until 105, black's yose is almost perfect.

Note that the tournament was played on the basis of Chinese
counting, so that the many extra stones White played inside his own
territory at the end cost no points, and the stones Black played to
capture White's dead stones were necessary according to the rules.

The complete results of the tournament are as shown here -
a fullreport including records of all the games is being produced by John
Hobson. It is planned that the event should be repeated at the same time
next year.